


In My Mind and in My Car

by clockheartedcrocodile



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cecil Might be Human or Inhuman, Fantasizing, Fluff, M/M, Masturbation, Phone Sex, Steve Carlsberg Gets Roasted, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:41:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17911346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockheartedcrocodile/pseuds/clockheartedcrocodile
Summary: Carlos is in love with the man on the radio.He’s never even seen his face.





	1. Observation

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a departure from my usual writing style!

Carlos is a scientist, and he’s not from around here.

This is common knowledge.

He’s got a lab next to Big Rico’s Pizza _(peeling the plastic off the seat of his factory-fresh desk chair)_ and an economical but attractively sporty hybrid coupe _(the man at the Car Lot licking his fingers as he counts the cash)_ and a team of scientists working around the clock to record, analyze, identify, classify, and clarify.

Night Vale is the most scientifically interesting community in America. Carlos has been here all of three days and he likes it already. There’s a lot of Research to be done and very little time to do it in, but nonetheless Carlos takes it upon himself to get a lay of the land, meet some people, do some fieldwork. If he is going to study this town- and indeed, he is very eager to begin studying it- then there is no better place to begin than with the people.

He bumps into a real asshole at Dark Owl Records.

It’s Monday, and the staff are wearing sweater vests. Carlos is making a valiant effort to choose between Isao Tomita’s _The Bermuda Triangle_ and Tangerine Dream’s _Phaedra_ when a white man in a cartoonishly inaccurate Native American headdress pokes his head up from behind the display case and whispers, “My god. Your teeth _are_ like a military cemetery.”

Carlos slowly lowers the records. “I beg your pardon?”

The asshole folds his arms, plants them firmly on the display case as he peers down at Carlos. “Can I touch your hair?” he asks, conversationally.

“Um,” says Carlos, meaning _no,_ but what actually comes out is, “I’m thinking of getting it cut, actually.”

A dark look passes over the asshole’s face. “Oh,” he says. “He won’t like that.”

“I’m just . . . I’m just gonna . . .” Carlos mumbles, digging around in the pockets of his white lab coat, “I’m just gonna write these down so I don’t forget them and then I’m gonna go.” He nods vaguely at Isao Tomita’s _The Bermuda Triangle_ and Tangerine Dream’s _Phaedra_ as he pulls out a four-color pen with teethmarks grooving the plastic.

The asshole stumbles back so fast that his headdress drops over his eyes.

“You can’t have _that,_ ” he stammers, shoving the feathers back up with both hands. “You- you can’t _have_ that, you _can’t_ have that.”

“Sir?” says a shaky voice from the back, and Carlos realizes that the Dark Owl employees- all nine of them- have fallen into a single-file train with their hands on each other’s shoulders, and are beginning to cautiously waddle towards him down the main aisle of the store. “You need to leave, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s store policy, sir. Sir, please. You’re killing us, sir. Sir, you’ll kill us all.”

Carlos, who has been a scientist for nearly ten years, finds this troubling.

He backs slowly out the door, the little bell jingling as it swings open and shut. He had wanted two things. Isao Tomita’s _The Bermuda Triangle,_ (or quite possibly Tangerine Dream’s _Phaedra,)_ and the opportunity to meet new and scientifically interesting people. Well. He had certainly accomplished one of those things.

Carlos does his level best to ignore his growing sense of unease. He will have to ignore many things, if he is going to continue living here. He sees that now.

He tucks his hands into his white lab coat- one of many identical coats hanging in his closet, as he wears them everywhere he goes, and for every activity- and sets off down the sidewalk. The heat is oppressive, but not entirely unpleasant. His economical but attractively sporty hybrid coupe is just around the corner.

As he walks to his car, Carlos thinks about his Research. He has been here scarcely three days, and is already having doubts about what his Research even entails. He knows it’s important, at least, and very scientific.

He also knows that if his Research is to be successful, he will need to keep up with local affairs.

 

_Have you considered the evening news?_

The question is printed in twelve-point Helvetica inside the lid of Carlos’ green tea Snapple. He takes a long sip, considering. None of the other scientists sleep in the lab. He is alone tonight. He has a little room in the back with a cot and workbench and a window. It’s not a bad living arrangement.

The sun is just setting over the desert horizon, and a cold, dusty wind whistles insistently against the windowpane. Carlos screws the cap back on his Snapple and considers his ability to multitask. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to get some Research done while tuning in to the evening news. Carlos is reasonably sure that he’s a good multitasker.

There is a much beloved community radio station here in town. Carlos may not be much of a radio man, but it would be remiss of him to completely ignore the impact such a fixture would have on the community.

So he goes down to the main body of the lab and brings back the first radio he finds. It's a clunky, old-fashioned thing, with big 60’s sci-fi buttons. He also brings with him another bottle of Snapple, a clipboard, a four-color pen, and a map of the Desert Creek housing development. He’s been told that there isn’t a house in the Desert Creek housing development, and that won’t do. That won’t do at all.

Carlos sets the radio up on the edge of his workbench, takes another swig of tea, and turns it on. It takes him a moment to tune in to the right station.

_“The desert seems vast, even endless . . .”_

Something warm and frantic clenches in Carlos’ belly.

_“. . . and yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow.”_

His eyes are beginning to water now. The man on the radio has a voice that's deep and easy and slow, like the voices of the audiobooks that would lull Carlos to sleep as a child. _Beautiful._

Carlos resents the desert wind howling outside, and the throbbing of his own heartbeat in his ears, for threatening to drown out that voice.

He sets down the bottle of Snapple.

He is not multitasking tonight.

 

The next morning, Carlos’ scientists approach him at his workbench and somberly inform him that books have stopped working.

Carlos, still halfway asleep and still far from caffeinated enough to offer scientific advisement, blearily suggests that they do some field work instead, and attend to the book situation later in the day. His colleagues agree, and not long later, Carlos finds himself huddling with them outside the house that isn’t in the Desert Creek housing development.

He feels hot and sleepy and stupid. The others are bickering amongst themselves, snapping bubblegum, crunching numbers. Daring one another to go up to the door and knock. Carlos lets out a sigh that’s more of a groan and tucks his clipboard under his arm.

He can’t stop thinking about the man on the radio.

That _voice_.

That voice is still in his head. He can almost hear it.

Everything the man on the radio said was deeply, _deeply_ concerning, but Carlos barely remembers any of it. He is still too shaken. He feels vaguely as though someone has taken him by the hair _(no one has touched him like that but he would love it, he knows he would, that voice tells him he would)_ and tilted his head to whisper to him. To make him _listen_.

That voice is a voice that cannot be ignored, or dismissed, or denied. It is easy to listen to what that voice has to say. It is even easier to believe it.

He wants to hear it again.

Carlos finds himself hating the morning sun. The clear blue sky, the air that coats his throat with dust. _Tonight,_ he thinks to himself. _Tonight, I’ll tune in again. I have to hear him again_.

“Are you scientists or aren’t you?” he blurts out, exasperated. He rubs the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. “Won’t anyone knock on that door?”

A dozen pairs of eyes turn to stare at him.

No one answers.


	2. Hypothesis

Carlos hits the blinker of his economical but attractively sporty hybrid coupe and pulls over on the side of the road next to what is probably a speed limit sign. “This is not,” he mutters through gritted teeth as he unbuckles. “This is not, this is not an _acceptable_ transit system.”

He shoves the door open with his foot and gets out, circling around the front of the car to feel out the sign. It says ⠠⠎⠏⠑⠑⠙ ⠠⠇⠊⠍⠊⠞ ⠼⠙⠼⠚, or, _Speed Limit 40_ , and Carlos sighs in exasperation. It’s supposed to be a fifteen minute drive from the lab to the Moonlite All-Nite diner. Fifteen minutes that quickly stretched into an hour, thanks to Night Vale’s utterly incomprehensible roadmaps.

The desert wind breezes through his newly-shorn hair, makes the tail of his lab coat flutter out behind him. It occurs to Carlos that he doesn’t want to be out here, alone in the interminable night. Something about the darkness makes him feel exposed.

A tumbleweed skitters across the asphalt and touches his leg. Carlos scrambles for the driver’s side door.

He hurls himself into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut. The lights turn on. Outside, the desert darkness spreads wide in every direction. He can’t see beyond the yellow beams of his headlights.

Carlos flips the lock switch with one shaking hand, and all four doors lock around him with satisfying _clunks_. He feels an immediate sense of relief, like a child who has finally leapt back under the covers after a late-night trip to the bathroom. His feet are off the floor. The monsters can’t get him now.

The pie at the Moonlite All-Nite had better be worth it.

Carlos steers the car back onto the road one-handed and fumbles with the radio dial. He’s met with a burst of wild static, through which he can hear a sequence of numbers being whispered, _sotto voce,_ into an oversensitive microphone. Then the signal clears, the channel is found.

_“We’ve had some power outages reported throughout Night Vale in the last couple hours. If you’re experiencing one . . . well. Then you can’t hear me, can you.”_

A pleasant shiver makes Carlos’ hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Stop that,” he mutters to himself. “You are a _scientist._ ”

Unfortunately, no amount of self-reproach can change the fact that Carlos has listened to the evening news broadcast every night for the past week. In so doing, he has learned more about the man on the radio than he ever expected.

His name is Cecil. And he _overshares_.

Carlos has become privy to an embarrassing number of revelations about Cecil’s personal life. He knows that Cecil has been to Europe, and still thinks of it fondly. He knows that Cecil once played Pippin in a high school production of South Pacific. He knows the sound of Cecil’s laugh.

He has no idea what Cecil looks like.

 _“You know what? Forget it,”_ Cecil says sharply. Carlos glances down at the radio in shock. _“I can tell you right now that that was Steve Carlsberg who said that, and he is such a spoilsport, that Steve!”_

Carlos sputters into laughter before he can stop himself. He covers his mouth, half outraged and half enchanted.

He’s never heard Cecil use _that_ tone. There’s something hysterically amusing about it, something that makes a kind of helpless affection well up in Carlos’ chest and threaten to strangle him.

_“Have you noticed how he never replaces his hubcaps? It’s laziness, pure and simple! Laziness!”_

“Oh my god,” Carlos groans into his hand, delighted. “Yeah, roast him! Fuck that guy!”

 _“I just can’t let him ruin our town, by denying Night Vale a drawbridge,”_ Cecil mutters, agitated beyond all reason, _“when he can’t even care for a tan Corolla!”_

This last is sneered with such vitriol, such outright malice, that Carlos can’t help but laugh. Fuck, he wants to meet Cecil. He wants to shake his hand, at the very least.

It occurs to him that he has no idea who Steve Carlsberg is, or what he has done. But Cecil hates him, and that is more than enough.

 _That’s what Cecil’s voice does to you,_ he thinks, dazed with laughter. _It gets you on his side. No matter who’s side he’s on._

Up ahead, the blue neon sign of the Moonlite All-Nite flickers to life. Carlos, about to careen right past it, hits the brakes. His economical but attractively sporty hybrid coupe screeches to a halt in the diner parking lot. Carlos swallows, takes a moment to catch his breath, to remind himself of his priorities.

His judgement is compromised. No, more than that, his _Research_ is compromised. There’s no way in hell he can adequately conduct scientific analysis when every day, every hour, he’s waiting to hear that voice again. Waiting for another glimpse of the absurd human being who’s broadcasting it.

Still, he can’t deny that listening to the radio is . . . easy. Comfortable. Out there, in the darkness, the stars leer down at him like a thousand watery eyes. Shadows move behind the diner’s hazy windows. Who _knows_ what could be out there.

But Cecil is on the radio, where he belongs, and Carlos ends every evening feeling peaceful, and pleasantly tired. It’s a wonderful, unfamiliar feeling.

Carlos’ eyes ache with exhaustion. He looks down at the radio, the little dashboard screen glowing faintly in the dark, and wonders what it would be like to fall asleep to that voice. Listening to Cecil murmur the same words into every ear in town. _Good night._

Or to hear that voice in person. Whispering _good night_ on the pillow next to his.

 

Two nights later, Carlos has a phone number burning a hole in his pocket and a laboratory all to himself.

The rest of his colleagues are next door at Big Rico’s _(nobody does a slice like Big Rico)_ and Carlos is amazed by how silent the lab has become in their absence. The freedom is disquieting. After five or so minutes of flinging himself across the lab in a rolling desk chair, he skids to a halt beside one of the experimentation tables and forces himself to face the facts.

This might not even be the radio station’s number. He had found it, after all, in fifteen-point Helvetica on the inside of a Snapple lid. Carlos rubs his hands together nervously, considering. Then he turns on the radio and lets Cecil’s quiet, firm voice fill the room.

The temptation to call is overwhelming, but what excuse could he possibly give? It’s not as though this is a call-in radio show.  _Long-time listener, first-time caller. I think of you every night._

Carlos sweeps an armful of papers off to the side and starts setting up microscopes and beakers of bubbling fluid. When the world seems troubling, Research never fails to distract him.

 _“And now,”_ says Cecil brightly, _“it’s time once again for our Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner!”_

Carlos turns up the volume a little before continuing to pour a green solvent from one vial to another. Cecil has been talking a lot about science lately, and in the words of the immortal Fresh Prince, he a little confused, but he got the spirit.

_“Oranges are becoming an important part of our local economy. But do you know where oranges come from? Well, look no further than John Peters. You know, the farmer? Every morning our friendly neighborhood agriculturalist goes out into his orchards and douses for oranges using a long, two-pronged stick. ‘Citrus is the only thing holding me together since my wife left me,’ he said to his bathroom mirror this morning, as he stood, teeth clenched tight, feet planted firmly on the slick bathroom floor. ‘At least I have citrus. At least . . . I have citrus.’_

_“Which is why it’s so important to keep eating oranges, kids! If you don’t eat enough oranges, John Peters (you know, the farmer?) will be terribly, terribly sad. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? You wouldn’t want to do that to our favorite local farmer man?_

_“This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner!”_

“Cecil, Cecil, Cecil,” Carlos mutters, adjusting his microscope. “You know those oranges are no good. I said, didn’t I? I said.”

Not that anyone in town listened to him. Nobody listens to scientists.

Still, it’s an egregious error in an otherwise normal Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Cecil has certainly been known to play fast and loose with science- something that Carlos finds endearing more than anything else- but exposing children to scientifically-suspect oranges is perhaps a step too far.

Carlos licks his lips, glances down at the raspberry Snapple lid tucked into the pocket of his lab coat. Nobody listens to him. But _everybody_ listens to Cecil.

He should call, really. It’s a matter of public safety.

 _“And with that, dear listeners,”_ says Cecil as Carlos dials. _“I give you . . . the weather.”_

Carlos leans one arm on the counter as he waits, fingers taping nervously against the chrome. The phone’s already ringing; he can’t take it back now. A hundred different conversation starters flick through his mind and all of them are dismissed out of hand for being too embarrassing. What is he even going to _say?_

There’s a click. A low, metallic hum. _“Hiya! Night Vale Community Radio, this is Intern Tilly.”_

Carlos swallows. “Um. Hello,” he says weakly, suddenly aware that his palms are sweating. He wipes them hastily on his nicely fitted jeans. “My name is Carlos. The scientist,” he adds, for clarification.

There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line.

 _“Oh,”_ says Intern Tilly. She sounds a little breathless. _“I see.”_

“Um. I just . . . it’s about the . . .” Carlos stammers, as his brain does the psychological equivalent of falling down ten flights of stairs. “Children’s . . . fun fact . . .”

 _“Just hold on,”_ she says hurriedly. _“I’ll connect you. Don’t let him talk your ear off, the weather only goes on for a minute or two.”_

“Thank you,” Carlos says helplessly. There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line, during which he realizes that the weather is Isao Tomita’s _The Bermuda Triangle._

_“Carlos?”_

That _name_ in Cecil’s mouth makes Carlos glad he’s sitting down; his knees would’ve given out if he’d been standing.

_“It is such a treat to hear from you! Did you just want to talk? I have all the time in the world for you. I mean, I have maybe two minutes. But that’s just because the feather is on. Weather is on! Ha, little, little slip of the tongue there. What’s on your mind?”_

“Science,” Carlos croaks. It’s surreal to hear that voice over the phone. The man on the radio seemed so unreachable, untouchable, and yet now that same voice was talking to _him._ And doing it _badly_.

 _“Oh fun!”_ Cecil laughs, a little too loud. Carlos hears the sound of rustling papers. _“I’m very into science, you know! Not now Tilly, I’m talking to Carlos,”_ he adds in a fierce whisper, one that Carlos is fairly certain he wasn’t meant to hear.

Carlos’ heart is in his throat. _What an awkward man,_ he thinks, and has to cup his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. “Listen, Cecil, I just wanted to say that . . . I . . .”

_Your voice is almost like bourbon. All of the punch, none of the burn. I could get drunk on it._

“I . . . enjoyed today’s Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner very much,” Carlos finishes weakly. He pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks very hard about the earth swallowing him whole. “Um. Maybe don’t eat John Peters’ oranges though. Those oranges seem suspect.”

_“Who?”_

Carlos frowns. “John Peters.”

There’s an awkward silence on the other end of the line. Feeling increasingly desperate, Carlos blurts out, “Y’know, the farmer?”

_“Oh, him! Well, don’t worry, Carlos. I’m sure everything will be just fine. He could really use the community support right now, and besides, why would someone try to sell something potentially dangerous to innocent consumers?”_

“I . . . don’t know, Cecil. I just . . . nobody in town listens to me, but they’ll listen to you. I saw something. I thought it was my civic duty to say something.”

 _“No,”_ says Cecil sharply. _“It’s not. If you see something, say nothing.”_

“But-”

_“Drink, if you have to.”_

“I don’t really drink.”

_“Start.”_

Carlos rubs the bridge of his nose, perplexed. “There’s a lot I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I’m not from around here.”

 _“I know,”_ says Cecil. His voice is gentler now, and achingly sincere. _“I didn’t mean to snap.”_

“No, no, it’s fine.”

There’s a brief pause between them. A tense, buzzing silence. Carlos can hear Cecil’s quiet breathing on the other end of the line- in, and out, in, and out. It’s unbearably human.

 _“That was embarrassing,”_ Cecil says finally, after a long moment. _“I’m usually so good at talking.”_

“I love your voice,” says Carlos before he can help himself.

_“Oh my god. Thank you.”_

“I’ve wanted to call for a long time.”

_“Were you looking for an excuse?”_

Carlos hopes his silence is answer enough. Cecil gives a sweet, nervous little chuckle. _“The weather. It’s almost over. I . . . I can’t leave dead air.”_

Carlos’ grip tightens on his phone as through trying to keep Cecil from leaving. “I understand,” he says instead, staring at the off-white floor tiles. “You’re a professional.”

_“Please feel free to call again.”_

“You’re not a call-in show.”

 _“Please,”_ says Cecil again, and _god,_ his voice is as soft and inviting as a warm bed on a cold night. _“I’d like you to call again.”_

There’s a dull click as he hangs up.

“Cecil,” Carlos murmurs into the silence.

 _“And we’re back, dear listeners,”_ says Cecil, over the radio. _“Do you ever lie awake at night, your eyes aching from exhaustion, your heart weighed down by the interminable certainty that the world is limping towards its death without you? Do you replay your life in the theatre of your mind? Do you change the ending? Do you whisper all the things you should have said into the clammy darkness of your childhood bedroom? Well, that’s how I feel after most social interactions. Let me tell you about this most recent one in excruciating detail.”_

Carlos lunges across the counter to turn the radio off.

 

His phone vibrates under his pillow.

Carlos stirs awake, groaning. He doesn’t open his eyes yet. It must be one, maybe two in the morning, three days after his impulsive call-in to the radio station. If he opens his eyes, he’ll never get back to his dream.

It had been a good dream. All warm shadows and bourbon-smooth voices.

He fumbles with his phone for a moment and answers the call. “‘llo?” he grunts, eyes still closed.

 _“Maybe I’m just being insecure,”_ says Cecil, and suddenly Carlos is wide awake, _“but I thought our last call didn’t go as well as I would have liked. Hi, I’m Cecil.”_

Carlos pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Hi,” he says, smiling slightly. “I’m Carlos.”

_“You’re a scientist.”_

“You’re the man on the radio.”

He swears he can hear the smile in Cecil’s voice when he speaks again. _“Intern Tilly gave me your number. I hope that’s alright.”_

Carlos grins sheepishly, and starts picking at a loose thread on his sheets. “More than alright,” he says. “More than alright.”


	3. Experiment

****“You don’t understand, Cecil.”

Carlos’ head is still throbbing from an unwelcome migraine. He’s sitting slumped on the front stoop of his lab, his back against the railing, watching the Geiger counter he just threw into traffic sputter and squeak.

 _“I think I’ve got it,”_ says Cecil over the phone. Carlos could almost cry at how soft his voice is. He’d taken such care to speak quietly when Carlos told him about the migraine. _“You’re saying that there’s a mysterious, invisible force in Night Vale that decides if we live or die.”_

Carlos watches a tan Corolla screech past, mangling the Geiger counter in a burst of sparks and shrieking metal. “Yeah, that’s one way of describing extreme ambient gamma radiation.”

_“Well, what’s the problem, then?”_

Carlos feels like screaming.

“This town is more radioactive than Chernobyl,” he says instead, forcing his voice to mimic a calm he does not feel. “I thought you would listen to me, Cecil. You of all people.”

 _“Carlos,”_ Cecil says placatingly, as though talking Carlos down from a ledge. _“Look. This just seems a little bit ‘out there,’ even for you.”_

Carlos really does scream this time, and hurls his phone into the street. He buries his face in his hands and lets out a frantic little laugh.

No one in town will listen to him. _(Nobody listens to scientists.)_

His colleagues are next door at Big Rico’s again. Cecil isn’t on the air for another hour, but calling him was supposed to _help._ He was supposed to explain it all, make it all better, the way he does on the radio.

This town is radioactive enough to kill them.

They should all be dead.

Carlos is no exception to this, scientist or no. He’s been here for days, breathing the air, driving through the radioactive desert. Sometimes people die in Night Vale, and sometimes they don’t. Carlos, it seems, is one of the _don’ts_.

Carlos pushes himself wearily to his feet. He slouches out into the road and picks up his phone, polishing off the dust with his sleeve.

“I am so sorry,” he says miserably. “I didn’t mean to throw you into traffic.”

 _“It’s a phone, silly, not my living, beating heart,”_ says Cecil. _“Listen, I’m at the station right now. If it will make you feel better, I’ll mention the gummy radiation during my show tonight. Anything in the name of science, right?”_

“Gamma.”

_“Gamma radiation. I’ll tell everyone in town about it, how’s that?”_

“Thank you, Cecil,” says Carlos, scuffing his shoes peevishly along the sidewalk as he returns to the lab. “They’ll listen to you. They always do.”

 _“Aw . . . Carlos . . .”_ says Cecil, just as Carlos plops himself down on the front steps again. _“You sound tired. Have you been sleeping?”_

“Yeah, yeah I’ve been sleeping,” Carlos nods. He rubs one of his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I’m fine. It’s just . . . the Research has been killing me, Cecil. If the gamma radiation won’t do it I think the paperwork will for sure. I’m going a little crazy here.”

_“Oh no!”_

“It’s like . . .” Carlos’ voice trails off as he gestures vaguely in the air before him. “It’s just . . . where I grew up, there were these mountains. It feels like I’m climbing this mountain that should be so familiar to me, but I’m blindfolded, and shackled, and every time I think I’ve found a foothold, I slide back a few more feet. If I could just see what I’m working with . . . if I could remember what the world was like, before this town . . . it all seemed so much simpler then.”

Nothing on Cecil’s end of the line, though he does hear what sounds like a shaky inhale.

“Cecil?”

 _“Sorry,”_ says Cecil, sounding almost embarrassed. _“I just . . . I think it’s cute.”_

Carlos frowns. “Um . . .”

_“That you believe in mountains. It’s . . . it’s sweet.”_

Carlos covers his mouth, resolutely holding back his smile. He’s still supposed to be upset. “Thank you, Cecil. I guess.”

Cecil chuckles awkwardly and Carlos is once again overwhelmed by how glad he is that they’re talking.

They talk all the time now, and have done for a couple weeks. The first and foremost difference between Phone Cecil and Radio Cecil- the detail Carlos noticed before anything else- is the voice. On the radio, he uses that one warm, very particular Radio Voice that makes unearthly disaster sound like a mild scheduling conflict. Sometimes, when Carlos is lying awake at night just to hear him speak, Cecil will say his _name_ in that voice, and it does indescribable things to him when he hears it.

But on the phone, it’s different. He’s more casual, less careful when he speaks. He talks like he doesn’t have an agenda, like there’s nowhere in the world he’d rather be than on the phone with Carlos. He is altogether a different man, and when Cecil ceases to be Cecil, and becomes only _the man on the radio,_ it’s as though Carlos’ new friend disappears altogether. He becomes, once again, the faceless caretaker of their tiny, desert community.

Carlos wonders when he started to think of this town as theirs.

 

Carlos is a scientist, and a scientist is always fine. He does his best to acclimate to the perils of living in Night Vale, and, on the whole, he does alright. Overtime he realizes that Cecil is not merely _a_ constant in Night Vale- he is _the_ constant. The only constant.

This is both a comfort and a source of terror.

It’s comforting late on a Tuesday night, as Carlos is driving back to the lab after a long day spent not knocking on the door of the house that isn’t there. The word from the sponsor is just Cecil reading off the radio half of “Video Killed the Radio Star” in a deadpan voice that’s so ridiculous in its solemnity that Carlos can’t help but sing the video half back at him, sing it as loud as he possibly can, until he has to pull over to check the speed limit and stumbles, laughing himself breathless, out of the car.

It’s terrifying when Carlos is sitting at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, nursing a bottle of Snapple and watching the headlights of passing cars flash past the window. Cecil’s voice is crackling from the speakers in the ceiling, as familiar to Carlos now as his own breath, his own body.

 _“She is skimming slowly out of town,”_ Cecil muses, as Carlos idly runs his finger around the rim of the bottle, listening to him. _“Her hand raises . . . it waves goodbye . . . her shoulders bounce slightly with the imperfections of the road. She turns to look back, and we all see her face, and we . . .”_

Carlos drinks deep, closes his eyes.

**_“We . . .”_ **

They snap open again.

**_“We . . .”_ **

Carlos sets his Snapple down too sharply. The heavy thunk attracts the attention of a nearby waitress, who approaches him with her leaves rustling.

“That’s not his voice,” Carlos says to her, hardly knowing what he’s saying. “That’s not his voice!”

 ** _“The Woman from Italy, oh merciful goddess!”_** Cecil croaks, and his voice is long and languid and _ugly_ , as though his voice is crawling up from his throat without his consent. **_“Her victims are legion, but this evening, they’re not us!”_**

“Of course it is, Carlos,” whispers the waitress through her own branches, and Carlos slams his elbows on the table, covers his head with his hands.

“No it’s not,” he mumbles, trying to will his ears to shut out the sound of that ghoulish sneer. “He sounds like . . . like some foreign _thing_ is playing his vocal cords without knowing the tune.”

 ** _“But you are safe for now, dear listener,”_** Cecil growls. Carlos can practically hear him drooling. **_“So goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.”_**

Cecil’s voice fades out into the next broadcast, which is the sound of fish being poured down a flight of stairs for forty-four minutes. Carlos slaps the table in frustration. “You are safe for now, dear listener!” he cries, in an unkind imitation of Cecil’s voice. “Now, how does he expect me to believe that, when people or, or things, or something can just _make_ him say whatever they please!”

"I believe that is called a sponsorship."

 _"No_ it is _not,"_ Carlos angrily wrestles himself out of the booth and pushes past the waitress.

“Sir,” she creaks gently. “You need to pay.”

Muttering curses under his breath, Carlos sits back down, whispers into his bottle and waits for the check to appear under the tray of sugar packets. “This isn’t okay,” he says desperately, rubbing his hands together under the table. “I’m doing alright. I’m fine, I have to be fine. But I, I put up with a lot, okay? I’m making every effort to acclimate. And I sure would like it if the _one good thing in this town_ would just . . . would just . . .”

 _Be normal,_ he doesn’t say.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, shoving some cash under the sugar packets and waiting for the gulp. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a very long day.”

Carlos stands up again, moves past the waitress a bit more gently. He leaves the diner with his eyes downcast, his hands in his pockets. The night air licks his neck the wrong way and makes him shiver.

It’s a long drive back to the lab.

 

When he was a boy, Carlos was afraid of the dark.

At least, he thinks he was. It’s difficult to remember what came before all of . . . this. Night Vale. The Research.

There had been a university, he remembers that much. And before that, there must have been a high school. Then a middle school. And before that, there must have been many long and aching nights, lying in the dark, listening to the silence. He had not believed in monsters. Carlos was a scientifically-minded child, even then.

It would have been better if there were monsters. Then, at least, there would have been _something._

Tonight feels like one of those lonely childhood nights. Carlos lies on his back, in his little cot, tucked out of the way of the rest of the world. Outside, the desert wind is soft against the window. He can even see the stars.

He’s turned the radio down very low, low enough that Cecil’s words are indistinct. Indecipherable, but there nonetheless. Carlos has been trying to sleep for the last half an hour, but all he can think of is the desert, and the darkness, and the way Cecil talks himself into breathlessness when he’s telling Carlos about his cat.

He closes his eyes. Breathes deeply, in, and out. In, and out.

His hand slips down into his boxers.

It’s fine, Carlos tells himself, and he resists the urge to shoot nervous glances at the door. The last thing he needs right now is to be walked in on. He takes himself firmly in hand, and strokes once from the base to the head.

It’s uncomfortable at first- he’s not even hard- but he’s chasing the dopamine crush, that sweet and easy crash into sleep after an orgasm. Carlos groans and tilts his head back against the pillow, breathing heavily now as he strokes faster, and thinks about the man on the radio until his cock starts throbbing with interest.

A shiver of pleasure passes through him as he hears Cecil’s voice rise, the words still too indistinct to make out. Carlos wonders if he should feel guilty, if he’s betraying something by using Cecil’s voice like this. _You’re no better than the rest of this godforsaken town,_ he thinks, and Carlos groans in frustration as his cock starts dripping down the back of his hand. He rolls over onto his belly, giving himself that extra little bit of friction, and begins stroking himself more insistently, trying to get off.

Something flickers past the window. A shadow, maybe, or a curl of dust. Carlos freezes in place, eyes wide, all activity halted as fight-or-flight instincts kick in. All at once he’s fourteen again, hurriedly rubbing one out in the shower and terrified of being caught. He holds still, listening, for just a beat too long before he resumes, his hand already slick with precum as he pushes himself towards completion.

Carlos presses his forehead against his pillow and tries to imagine what Cecil would look like. The thought conjures innumerable fantasies of dark skin and darker eyes, pale skin and lean arms, tanned skin and freckles and a sweet, mocking mouth. Carlos wants all of them and none of them, can vividly imagine that voice, the _spirit_ of that voice, shining behind a thousand different eyes.

 _He wouldn’t touch me,_ Carlos thinks, _unless I wanted him to._

The thought crashes in on him so suddenly that Carlos’ jaw slackens, his hand stills on his cock. He knows immediately that he’s right; Cecil would never ask for more than Carlos would give. He might even be content to just . . . be with him. Lie beside him in bed and whisper, watching Carlos take his pleasure and enjoying the thought that his voice alone can bring Carlos to his knees. A chance . . . maybe . . . for Carlos to enjoy sex without navigating the perilous waters of how to touch and be touched.

Oh. Oh, that would be _wonderful_.

Carlos clenches his fist hard in the bedsheets and groans through gritted teeth. “Fuck,” he whispers, muffled by the pillow. _“Cecil,”_ he groans again, as the tension trembling in his limbs finally crests, and he spills himself into his own hand with a wavering, undignified gasp.

The tension unravels too fast for him to cling to it, and Carlos collapses against the mattress, feeling tired, languid, almost satisfied. In the ringing silence, he strains to hear the end of Cecil’s show, and manages to muster enough energy to turn the radio up before falling completely limp.

 _“Listeners,”_ says Cecil, in that unbearable rough-soft purr. Carlos closes his eyes, snuggles down deeper into his pillow, too light and dreamy to feel guilty. _“Listeners out there. Listeners out in the vacant night, clinging to my voice as a simulacrum of companionship. Remember: Fear is consciousness plus life. Regret is an attempt to avoid what has already happened. Toast is bread, held under direct heat until crisp. The present tense of regret is indecision. The future tense of fear is either comedy or tragedy, and the past tense of toast is toasted.”_

“I hope you love your work, Cecil,” Carlos mumbles, in the last hazy moments before post-coital dreams swallow him whole. “No tucks you in, says _good night._ Only you.”

_“Stay tuned now for more voices. More reassuring noise in this quiet world._

_“Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.”_


	4. Conclusion

****_“Does it even matter how many living things you touch today, or where they all are now?”_

Carlos lies in bed, sleepless, wondering when exactly he’d lost sight of the line between weird and beautiful. The line is too thin these days, too semantic. Too distracting.

_“The Summer Reading Program for children and teens has begun at the Night Vale Public Library.”_

Carlos wonders if Cecil goes to the library much. If he might see him there, lurking among the stacks. Lately he’s found himself interested in the faces of strangers, wondering if that’s him, if that’s the voice on the phone, on the radio, in Carlos’ dreams. From the waiter who serves him at Big Rico’s _(acne-scarred, but handsome, with piquant blue eyes and boyish hips)_ to the officer who pulls him over for singing in the car _(skin like a new corpse and a wet mouth full of blunt, even teeth)_ to his fellow scientists themselves, each one as infinitely varied and utterly unremarkable as every other human being in the universe.

Carlos closes his eyes, tries to focus on Cecil’s voice, but it’s not easy tonight. He’s turned the radio up as loud as it goes but the sound of activity in the lab is too distracting. His colleagues are pulling a late one.

It’s going to ruin his whole night.

Carlos gets out of bed, muttering to himself, and pushes the door open with the full intention of telling his people off. He halts in the doorway before he can start, caught offguard by the sight of his colleagues at work. The work that they do is negligible- one of them is doing a little dance in the corner- but they are good people, who presumably led happy lives before they followed Carlos into the desert.

A strange, inexplicable affection swells in Carlos’ heart. His chest aches to look at them.

“Good work today, everyone,” he says, with no small amount of fondness.

This pronouncement is met with general confusion. One of his colleagues _(the one with the terrible haircut)_ has been caught in the act of eating a bowl of ice. He sheepishly spits half a melted cube into the palm of his hand.

“I mean it. I really do,” Carlos says sincerely. He closes the door behind him with his foot. “I’m pretty sure we’ve all sacrificed a great deal in the name of science. I think we’ve earned a break, don’t you?”

He puts his hands on his hips and smiles hopefully. If his colleagues notice that he’s still in his boxers, they don’t say anything about it.

One of them adjusts their glasses with a waspish squint. “A break?”

“The Research,” says another, sounding uncomfortable. “It’s been going . . . well?”

 _“So_ well,” says Carlos. “In fact, I think we’re almost done.”

A great, shuddering exhale ripples through the room, and all of a sudden they’re smiling. Backs are slapped. Hands are gripped tight in solidarity. Carlos beams at all of them and wonders desperately what their Research entails.

 _I suppose it doesn’t matter,_ he thinks, _as long as it’s going well._

“Oh my god,” he says helplessly, spreading his arms wide. “Come on guys, bring it in. Bring it in.”

They cluster together in a tight little group hug, arms around shoulders, foreheads bumping together. “Lab partners?” asks the one with the glasses.

“Lab partners!”

_“Lab partners!”_

A cheer goes up as the group disperses. Carlos slaps a white-clad shoulder and looks around the room. “You guys go. You guys have a great time.”

“Big Rico’s again?” says someone hopefully, which earns them a sharp elbow to the ribs, and, laughing and bickering like kids on summer break, Carlos’ scientists eventually make their way out into the street.

Carlos steps out onto the front stoop and watches them scatter in groups of two or three. Their white coats vanish around corners, into buildings, behind the wheels of mysterious cars.

Carlos stays until they’re all lost from view and only then does he finally breathe. The desert is cool and dry tonight, and the mysterious lights passing overhead almost look like stars. The barest breeze stirs Carlos’ hair and his lips part, letting out a sigh.

He supposes it should concern him, this instinctive, almost animal reaction to the encroaching darkness. Darkness means night, and night means . . .

Carlos shuts the door and locks it, wondering if he’s too far gone. If the Research, whatever it is, will ever be completed, and if there will still be a University waiting for him when he’s done.

Not that there’s anything of any importance beyond Night Vale anymore. Carlos isn't sure there ever was. The thin line between weird and beautiful is fading. He reads road signs with his fingertips. He whispers into cups.

It’s getting late.

He misses Cecil.

Carlos swallows nervously and walks briskly through the empty lab, towards the back room with its cot and its window and its radio, and wonders if Cecil would welcome a call after his show tonight. He probably would. Cecil always sounds so pleased when Carlos calls.

He returns just as Cecil is introducing the weather.

It's Tangerine Dream’s _Phaedra._

Carlos takes care to crack the window open before he falls into bed, boxers still on, overwhelmed with relief at the thought of not having to get up again. He gropes blindly for his phone but doesn't dial, considering.

He’s still considering by the time _Phaedra_  has given way to Cecil’s broadcast. He makes the ghoulish tragedy at the library sound as natural as government surveillance. Carlos puts his arms behind his head and listens.

Cecil had said once that Carlos was the only man in town he could talk to, really _talk_ to.

“You can talk to anyone,” Carlos murmurs into the emptiness of his room. “Anyone. And they’d listen.”

_Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s only you._

A selfish, treacherous part of himself likes that.

 _“Here’s to you, boys and girls,”_ Cecil is saying, _“and remember, even while we congratulate Tamika for winning your loyalty with her sophisticated comprehension and extremes of berserker violence, that the real victory won today has been for literacy.”_

He feels hot and restless, his skin prickling all over. Tonight is different from the other nights. He can feel Night Vale stirring in his belly. He wants to crawl out into the darkness and swallow the desert whole.

Carlos’ phone is sitting on the pillow right next to his ear. It would be so easy to call. Just to talk. That’s all. Just to talk.

He hears Cecil's voice in the silence between his breaths.

_“Stay tuned next for our countdown of last words, from ‘Stop telling me how to drive’ all the way to ‘It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.’”_

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

_“Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.”_

Carlos jumps for his phone so fast it’s almost embarrassing. It’s already ringing by the time it’s in his hand. Carlos answers it, incredulous, and barely gets a word out before Cecil starts talking.

_“I was thinking about you.”_

Carlos’ heart feels like a live animal in his chest, beating its wings against his ribcage. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Me too.”

_“Were you listening?”_

“Always.”

_“I thought you might be. I mean, I was kind of hoping you were.”_

“All of that, at the library . . .” Carlos stares helplessly at the ceiling, torn between the urge to comfort Cecil and the fear of acknowledging the life-threatening nature of community radio. “Look, that sounded dangerous, alright? It sounded pretty bad. Try to take care of yourself. For me.”

 _“Aw, Carlos. Don’t worry about me,”_ says Cecil. His voice is as light and sweet as strawberry tea. _“Nothing fucks with me in my own town.”_

And oh, if that doesn’t go _straight_ to Carlos’ cock.

He swallows, bites his lip. “Tell me more?”

It slips out before he can stop himself.

There’s a moment’s silence, in which Carlos wonders if he’s crossed the line. _The line between weird and beautiful,_ he thinks, delirious.

Then Cecil says, _“What would you like to hear?”_ and _there_ it is, that low and gentle voice, the one that lulls a frightened town to sleep, the one that promises they’ll all wake up in the morning. _That voice_.

Carlos shivers. It ripples like warm water down his back, makes his legs twitch. Cecil _knows._ Carlos can hear his smile, hear the way his breathing changes as he waits for Carlos’ reply. “I . . .” he says weakly, but the words won’t come. He scoots himself a little higher on the bed so he can pull his boxers down, and winces at the crunch of springs. He holds his breath, wondering if Cecil heard it.

 _“Hmm?”_ Cecil hums, and he _definitely_ heard it.

Carlos cups his hand over his mouth, mortified. “Um,” he mumbles. “I . . . don’t know.”

 _“. . . I think I do,”_ says Cecil, after a long moment.

“I don’t do this. I never do this.”

_“Neither do I.”_

“I don’t even like . . .” Carlos says all in a rush, but he chokes, and can’t quite finish. He clears his throat with an ugly cough, tries again. “I don’t even _like_. . . but . . . I like this. But I don’t like to be touched. Sometimes.”

 _“I’m not going to touch you,”_ says Cecil, in that same smooth, even voice. _“But I’m . . . I’m here, nonetheless. You can use my voice, if you want.”_

“Oh,” Carlos whispers, stunned. “Oh.”

 _“Is that alright?”_ asks Cecil, a sudden note of uncertainty creeping into his voice. _“Is that what you wanted?”_

“Yeah,” Carlos says weakly. “Yeah, it . . . yeah.”

He fumbles with the phone, manages to turn it on speaker just as Cecil actually _giggles._

“I’m sorry,” Carlos stammers, beyond embarrassed. “I’m sorry, it’s just-”

 _“No no no,”_ says Cecil, sounding delighted. _“You’re good. I just, y’know. I’ve had some . . . boyfriends . . .”_ and this last he whispers almost licentiously, like it’s a secret he can’t believe he’s divulging, _“and none of them wanted me to talk.”_

“It’s all I can think about,” Carlos breathes, almost frantic with the need to tell him, to make him _understand._ “Every day, every hour.”

 _“Am I on speaker?”_ Cecil says gently.

Carlos swallows. “Yeah.”

_“Put me on the table next to your bed.”_

Carlos almost drops the phone in his haste to comply. “You still there?”

 _“There we go,”_ Cecil says, his breath a little unsteady. _“Good, good . . . well done . . . now close your eyes.”_

Carlos closes them, his mouth dropping open in a silent sigh.

_“Better, now?”_

“Yeah.”

 _“More like the radio?”_ Cecil adds knowingly, and that little teasing lilt in his voice is unbearably frustrating. _“That’s all I am, right? Just a stranger on the radio.”_

Carlos nods mutely and wraps one hand around his cock. He’s throbbing already and touching himself is almost painful, his hands achingly rough and not nearly warm enough. Carlos groans, shuts his eyes tight and tries not to move his hips. He wants desperately to grind into something, to feel something hot and wet clench lovingly around his cock, but there’s nothing there.

 _“It’s not enough, is it,”_ Cecil whispers. _"Imagining a stranger in your bed . . . it's not enough."_

Carlos growls under his breath. “I wish you were here.”

_“But I am here, Carlos. I’m right here. My mouth to your ear- you can hear me, can’t you?”_

Carlos fists his hand in the bedsheets and tries to steady his breathing. Cecil’s voice finds its way into him, clutching at his heart and squeezing hard. His skin is flushed hot and he’s starting to sweat; it’s only then that he remembers of the open window, the cool air soothing his burning skin.

On the other end of the line, so faintly he almost misses it, Carlos hears the soft rasp of a zipper being lowered.

The sound makes Carlos’ mouth go dry, entirely involuntary. _“I wish I could touch you,”_ Cecil groans. _“I wouldn’t, not without your say . . . you know all I want is your happiness, Carlos, you know that . . . but . . . sheesh . . .”_

That _sheesh_ is so unguarded and so definitively _Cecil_ that Carlos almost laughs, almost forgets that this is the hardest he’s ever been in his life, and he ends up letting out a shaky sigh of pleasure as he rubs off into the palm of his hand.

_“_ _Perfect, perfect Carlos. You're so good for me. So good for the stranger you've never seen. I could be anyone. We could pass each other in the street tomorrow and only I would know how I fucked you with my voice the night before."_

“Stop . . .” Carlos groans helplessly, eyes screwed shut. “Cecil . . .”

 _“No one can hear me,”_ Cecil purrs, almost playfully. _“Nobody but you. I’m not on the air. Would you like that, Carlos? If I whispered in your ear with the whole town listening. The whole town knowing what my voice was doing to you. I could do that, you know. No one would question me.”_

“You wouldn’t,” Carlos stammers, breathless. “You wouldn’t.”

He pictures Cecil’s shrug in his mind’s eye. _“You’re right, I wouldn’t. I’m a professional.”_

Cecil’s voice does something wonderful to the word _professional_ and Carlos is losing his mind, openly fucking into his own hand now as he tries to picture Cecil’s body against his. His cock is slicked to dripping with precum and he can feel the desert wind licking his skin like tongue and teeth and the very _night air_ is Cecil’s _breath_ and Carlos’ back arches off the bed as he threatens to shake apart with longing.

“You have no f-fucking idea,” he snarls, pressing his face against the pillow in frustration, “the power, the power you have in your _mouth,_ you have my _throat_ in your fucking _teeth._ ”

 _“I do,”_ says Cecil, and there’s something dire dripping from his voice that makes Carlos want to drop to his knees in front of him. _“I know.”_

“Tell me what you look like,” Carlos strokes himself a little more fiercely, his eyes shut tight as if not looking at it will distract him from the slick, wet sound of skin on skin. “Tell me. _Please._ ”

_“I can’t . . .”_

“Please,” Carlos’ teeth are clenched tight. “Please."

The silence is interminable, a loving hand taken away just at the point of climax, and Carlos has to bite down on the pillow to stop himself from begging like an animal.

 _“What . . . do you want to know?”_ Cecil says haltingly.

“Anything. Anything.”

_“Anything?”_

“For fuck’s sake!” Carlos groans. “Cecil just . . . anything, please . . .”

He can hear Cecil’s ragged breathing on the other end of the line. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, _“I have . . . brown hair.”_

Carlos takes a deep, shuddering breath, and lets it out. “Like mine,” he breathes, delighted beyond all reason. “Like mine.”

 _“No, not like yours,”_ Cecil says shyly, and Carlos can hear him smiling. _“No one has hair like yours.”_

Carlos laughs then, even as pleasure tightens like a struck piano wire in his belly. He rubs his thumb firmly over the head of his cock. “Your eyes,” he groans, head falling back against the pillow. God, he loves him. _God,_ he’s going to come from this, from a _voice_ in his _ear._ “Your eyes, your eyes, tell me about your eyes.”

_“Mmm . . . are you sure?”_

“You fucking _tease,_ Cecil . . .”

 _“Alright,”_ says Cecil, gentle, placating. _“If you really want to know . . . my eyes are violet.”_

“Violet,” Carlos stammers, but he’s already too close, his hand is too much and not enough and he’s so close, just a _moment longer_ . . .

 _“Yes,”_ says Cecil. _“All three of them.”_

Carlos comes so hard he almost passes out.

He’s dimly aware that he’s gripping the sheet hard enough to tear it, and his other hand is obscenely slick as he slowly unclenches it from around his cock.

“God,” he says weakly. “God. Fuck.”

The desert breeze against his wet skin makes him shiver and twitch, but even that’s not enough to sour the relief that floods through his muscles, relaxing him. He feels fucking  _transcendent._ Like he could melt into darkness and become just one more of Night Vale’s shadows.

Dazed, Carlos rolls onto his side. Sleep is clutching at him, threatening to drag him down into dreams, and it’s a struggle to keep his eyes open. He chuckles weakly. “Three?”

 _“Only sometimes,”_ Cecil sighs lazily, and Carlos recognizes the groan of an equally satisfied, equally exhausted partner. _“When I need to see.”_

It’s quiet. Carlos finds he almost misses the sound of his friends in the lab. “What can you see?”

_“Everything.”_

“I wish I could see you,” Carlos murmurs, so quietly he wonders if Cecil could even hear him through the phone.

 _“You can,”_ Cecil says gently. _“Almost. Go to the window.”_

Carlos obeys.

He sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, enjoying the delirious ache through his muscles as he stretches. He flinches at the cold floor on his bare feet, but crosses the room anyway to open the window a little wider and look outside. The night air against his bare skin is pleasantly cool, like the teasing hand of a lover. He doesn’t feel exposed, despite his nakedness. He feels at ease.

There, above the town, blinking silently in the desert, is the red light of the WTNV radio tower.

 _“There I am,”_ Cecil murmurs.

Carlos rests his chin on his hand, gazes up at the light. “Sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll tune in and there’ll be nothing but dead air where your voice used to be.”

 _“I’m not going anywhere,”_ says Cecil, and Carlos believes him.

The light blinks slow and steady over the town. It never changes. Nor does the desert, or the Research, or Cecil himself. Only Carlos has changed- somewhere on the line between weird and beautiful, he has forgotten how to be afraid.

Carlos steps away from the window, eyes still lingering on the radio tower as he collapses, exhausted, into bed. He can still see it through the window. He wonders how he never noticed it before.

“I don’t think I’ll ever leave Night Vale,” he says.

_“No one ever does.”_

“Promise me that we’ll keep doing this,” Sleep is heavy on his eyes now, insistent, dragging him down, down, down. “Talking, I mean. You’ll keep talking.”

 _“I promise,”_ says Cecil, amused. _“As long as you keep listening.”_

Carlos smiles a little, and opens his mouth to speak, but exhaustion closes in on him too quick and he sinks into a dark, deep sleep.

He doesn’t dream.


End file.
